


Via Dolorosa

by Unlikelyoptimist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sam Winchester Whump, Stigmatic Sam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1811908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unlikelyoptimist/pseuds/Unlikelyoptimist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." - Matthew 16:24</p>
<p>Sam's always been on the road to Calvary, whether he knew it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Genesis: The Beginning

It started in a church. 

Sam sat tranquilly in a pew, the stained wood shining with a cherry sheen. The church was filled with golden afternoon light, a sepia photograph come to life. The silence remained unbroken as Sam looked upwards, towards a crucifix. It was a beautiful, old thing; the cross itself a dark oak while the carved body of Christ was a pale ash, coated in century old oil paint that gleamed dimly. The head was bowed, the face cloaked in shadow.

And then it began, a steady drip, and there was blood staining the pale wood, as it ran from wounds; not roughened wood painted garish red, but wounds, torn flesh marked with countless testaments to suffering, torture. 

Sam approached cautiously, feet disturbing small puffs of dust, and his ears rang with more than silence. He stopped at the foot of the cross, level with it now. He reached up with a tentative hand and let it brush against nails embedded in the Messiah’s hands, rested it on the bloody brow, scraping his palm on a thorn. 

The head turned up slowly and dark eyes opened, full of agony...full of grace. They were the eyes of someone who was free, redeemed, untainted by the burden of guilt and sin. Sam wanted to shrink back, felt unworthy, but that gaze held him there. 

Sam.  
You are saved.

He woke silently, but refused to open his eyes, lose that brief flash of peace that had washed over him. Instead he pondered the words, turning them over and letting them run like sand through his mind. As Dean grumbled about getting up so early in the other bed, he traced a finger over the palm of his hand. Remembered those eyes, and felt...not jealousy, not something so petty. Longing.

The center of his palm pulsed with deep pain; Sam didn’t flinch. He held it up while Dean wasn’t looking and stared, fascinated. 

Matthew 16:24  
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

+++

“What do you need a bible for, Sammy? Gonna start quoting verses at me when I piss you off?” Sam felt a small twinge, felt the dirt of blasphemy, in the words. Dean caught his expression and shrugged, marking it off as another one of Sam’s irregularities, one more thing he would never understand about his little brother. Almost tossing it, Dean thought better of it, and handed Sam the bible.

Maybe it was just him, but the way Sam had taken the bible was almost funny; clumsily, like he didn’t want to move his fingers. 

“Your hand ok, Sammy?” His voice was a little sharp; Sam looked up at him, eyes vague. 

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s great.” Dean nodded once, tersely. 

Sam opened the bible gingerly, flipping until he found it. The Passion, which he’d only heard once, when he’d attended mass with Jess and her parents. They’d wanted to take him to Easter Mass, but Stanford’s break hadn’t lined up properly, and so they’d ended up in a stuffy, uncomfortable church on Palm Sunday instead as two droning voices read the Passion of Christ. 

This was different. Sam read in rapture. He couldn’t picture the face of Christ; it had slipped from his memory, or maybe never really been that important in the first place. Even the stare, the voice, didn’t help him piece together a picture. 

The wounds were a different story. He could see all of those, every one; the messy holes in the hands, caused by blunted nails forced through flesh and bone, and the ones in the feet, ragged where iron had torn through tendon and muscle. Oozing red wounds striping the back, half congealed scabs cracking at the slightest provocation. 

And a crown of woven thorns, puncturing and pricking the skin of the forehead, abrading it until the blood streamed down the face like sweat. 

Thinking of them, even now, filled Sam with a feeling that deepened and swelled until he thought he might gasp for air. 

John 19:28  
I thirst.


	2. Lamentations

Dean watched, brooding, as Sam cleaned his gun. The pain was no longer a pulse, but a deep knot, twisting itself into the muscles of his hand. Something in him wanted to claw it to the surface. Sam had rubbed it experimentally, stretched his hand and twisted it, but it didn’t go away. He didn’t want it to. 

It had begun.

He dropped the cleaning cloth as his hand throbbed again. Dean’s eyes followed his hand as he bent to retrieve it; the skin was red and irritated, and the dim purple of a bruise was beginning to bloom. Dean’s jaw tightened, and he stood, going to sit at the computer and beginning to type furiously. His silence was a confrontation of its own. 

Isaiah 49:4   
Though I thought I had toiled in vain, for nothing and for naught spent my strength,Yet my right is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God

+++  
“Stigmata.” 

Sam was sitting on the bed as Dean knelt at his feet. He’d expected the wounds to be cleaner; even, matching circles on each hand. They weren’t; he’d gone to sleep, staring at the bruises, and woken to irregular holes on each hand, staining the sheets on either side of his where his arms had been splayed out. 

Sitting up, he’d examined them with his throat clenched with awe, and wonder. The motel room around him had seemed distant, for a moment, until Dean was at his side, hissing curses under his mouth and sitting Sam on the edge of the bed, growling at him not to move. 

“It’s called stigmata.” 

“I know, Dean.” Another nod. The bandages wound around his hands, layer after layer of delay, Dean’s defense against Sam’s blessing.   
 “Then you know how it ends.” It wasn’t an accusation; for once, Dean was keeping his emotions tightly in check, clipping the wings of his anger. Sam didn’t bother denying it, didn’t feel the need. 

“I know what it is,” he corrected. It was all Dean could see, the end, he saw how it ended but not how it was. The flawless, powerful peace that each wound brought.

Finally, Dean looked at him, and he stared. There was no understanding in his eyes. That was alright with Sam. He wished that Dean could understand. Knew that he couldn’t. He would settle for acceptance. 

“You want this? This...the stigmata?” Dean ground out the last word like it was coated in sulfur and he wanted to burn it in salt. 

“I deserve it.” The words startled him both. Sam Winchester hadn’t thought he deserved a damn thing in his lifetime; not Jess, not Dean, not his life or any happiness that came with it. That was who he was; Sam the abomination, who took what he wanted because if he waited to deserve it, it would never come. 

And the most miraculous part was that Sam spoke with joy. He didn’t just think he deserved the pain; he deserved the blessing that came with it. He didn’t have to be told, convinced, cajoled into believing. He knew. 

Dean didn’t understand his words, misunderstood and misinterpreted every one of them. But between the two of them, words had slowly begun to mean less and less. Dean listened to the way his voice shook with joy, his eyes shone with pride and devotion, and made his quiet surrender. 

When Dean spoke again, his voice was raw. 

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Sam smiled softly, seeing only Dean at 17, shouting at Sam to fight back, if he wouldn’t let Dean fight for him. 

“It does.” Dean worked his jaw for a moment before nodding. Sam’s serenity terrified him. But he’d left Sam’s side once; he wasn’t about to do it again.

“I’m not gonna lie, Sam. I don’t get this. I mean...every instinct in me is telling me to keep searching for a way to get rid of this, to stop it. But if this is really want you want, Sammy, I’m..I’m not gonna take it from you.” Sam nodded, feeling the finality of it begin. 

“Will you stay with me?” Dean closed his eyes. Stay and watch his brother die. 

The eyes open, and Dean gave Sam a thin smile, stretched tight. 

“Of course, Sammy. You and me against the world, right?”

Matthew 26:33  
Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old work, and was written for whiskeyandoldspice's Mashiach tag on tumblr.


End file.
